<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/28/education/28face.html?em&ex=1172984400&en=49a1c4ec2d970d7a&ei=5087%0A%5B/url%5D">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/28/education/28face.html?em&ex=1172984400&en=49a1c4ec2d970d7a&ei=5087%0A</a>
"MR. REIDER and other college counselors say there is nothing wrong with Stanford or Swarthmore or the Ivy League universities. Mr. Pope takes a harder line, though. Unafraid of broad generalizations and uninterested in diplomacy, he dismisses elite universities as too big, too impersonal and too selective."</p>
<p>“I’m preaching the virtues of the unselective small colleges, the ones that are inclusive rather than exclusive,” Mr. Pope said in an interview at his apartment in a retirement community here in the suburbs of northern Virginia.</p>
<p>“A good school is an extended family,” he said. “The learning is collaborative, not competitive. It’s a community of learning, and values are central — that’s important.”</p>
<p>I guess it might be flattering for Swarthmore to be listed like that ("Stanford or Swarthmore or the Ivy League universities"), but since when is it "too big", or "too impersonal"? If anything, it is often "blamed" for being too small, and too personal... And what's wrong with being selective? Doesn't it make a stronger "community of learning"? And how does being selective prevent collaborative learning environment? Most of the projects students have to do for their classes at Stanford are group projects. They would not get very far there without learning how to collaborate...</p>
<p>Maybe Mr. Pope needs a logic course refresher...</p>